SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AylaNetworks now has $39 million more to continue propelling the
success of its global Internet of Things (IoT) platform for
manufacturers. Ayla’s Series C financing round comes from a broad group
of global investors led by Ants Capital, a boutique investment bank and
asset management company with headquarters in China and investment
interests in China, North America and Europe; co-led by 3NOD, a leading
original design manufacturer (ODM) of smart lifestyle products; and
joined by new investors Mitsui and Acorn Pacific. Existing Ayla
investors Cisco Investments, Crosslink Capital, International Finance
Corp. (IFC, a division of World Bank Group), Linear Venture, SAIF
Partners/Oriza Ventures, SJF Ventures and Voyager Capital also
reinvested in this financing round.

“Our strategy at Ants Capital is to focus on the leading platforms in
particular market segments and select winners,” said Yin Min, managing
partner of Ants Capital. “The Internet of Things will be the next area
where major winners will emerge, and we invested in Ayla because it has
unmatched traction inside China and globally with leading manufacturers
making IoT products. Ayla’s strategy and IoT platform is a clear fit
with the direction of manufacturers worldwide.”

“Ayla is fast becoming one of the leading IoT platforms for OEMs that
are manufacturing and shipping IoT products globally,” said David
Friedman, CEO and co-founder of Ayla Networks. “With IoT clouds
operating in multiple regions worldwide, and with major customers
continuing to expand their Ayla-powered IoT product lines, Ayla believes
that the ‘when’ of the IoT is right now—and that Ayla Networks is well
positioned to help manufactures take advantage of growing market for
connected products.”

Customer Base and Employee Count Growing Rapidly

Ayla has become the number-one IoT platform provider for manufacturers
in many markets, including home appliances, residential and commercial
HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) systems, water heaters,
water softeners, and home fire and safety products. During the past
year, the company has announced new or expanded relationships with
manufacturing customers that include Changhong, Dimplex, Fujitsu
General, Hampton Brinks, Hunter Fan, Kidde, LockState, Ozner, TCL and
United Technologies Electronic Controls (UTEC).

Within one year, Ayla has more than doubled its employee headcount. To
give its growing staff more room to work, the company recently moved its
U.S. headquarters to a new building in Santa Clara, Calif., with 34,000
square feet of office space.

Ayla at the Forefront of IoT Market Growth

“We are at the threshold of a technology explosion that will see, in a
few short years, each of us hosting several dozen connected devices in
our homes and on our bodies, thanks to the IoT,” said Tom Kerber,
director of research at Parks Associates. “But to get there,
manufacturers of connected products need to navigate the complexities of
the IoT. Both manufacturers and investors recognize the value of a
secure, flexible, scalable and cost-effective IoT platform that meets
the needs of today’s market—and that can continue to deliver value over
the lifetime of a connected product."

“The IoT market is like a rocket ship, and we’ve seen it gather speed
rapidly in recent months,” said Friedman. “Manufacturers that a year ago
simply wanted to build a connected product are now discovering the
business transformation possible through harnessing the data generated
by IoT products.”

Extending the Ayla IoT Ecosystem and Platform Technology

Ayla has enhanced and added partner relationships, including an open
cloud-to-cloud partnership with Zonoff, designed to greatly simplify the
effort currently involved in enabling smart home systems and solutions
to enlarge their ecosystems of connected products; co-development of
solutions for IoT manufacturers with Encycle (formerly Regen), a smart
energy management company; cooperative development projects with Renesas
Electronics America; and the announcement that it is “all-in” with
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is the core cloud infrastructure
powering Ayla’s IoT platform globally.

Within the past year, Ayla expanded its IoT platform offerings by
launching the Ayla Agile Mobile Application Platform (AMAP) to
accelerate the development of mobile control of connected devices;
introducing Ayla Insights, a new IoT platform service that turns IoT
connected-product data into actionable business intelligence for
manufacturers; and adding mobile beacon technology, which automatically
activates a connected product’s mobile app when a user’s smartphone is
in proximity of a beacon-enabled connected product.

Ayla Continues to Expand Globally

Ayla has now established IoT clouds in North America, China and Europe.
In China—where Ayla is the only international IoT platform to have been
granted a license to serve as an Internet Content Provider (ICP) in the
People’s Republic of China—the company has built out its platform to
integrate and align with WeChat, including a single WeChat sign-in so
users can control multiple smart home, smart health and other IoT
lifestyle products from a single app.

In 2016 Ayla formally established its presence in Japan, with an office
in Shin-Yokohama, a regional manager in place and plans to add a fourth
Ayla IoT cloud service to support the broader Asia region, including
Japan. The company also announced several key partnerships, including
Macnica, its first rep firm in Japan, and Revsonic as its initial
engineering services and ODM partner in Japan, as well as extensions to
Japan of existing relationships with module manufacturer Murata, MCU
provider Renesas, and customers including Fujitsu General and an
unannounced leading Japanese manufacturer.

Earlier, Ayla opened and staffed a new office in Taiwan, with sales,
business development and R&D personnel. It also expanded its operations
in Shenzhen to better serve China, where many large OEMs do their
manufacturing.

“Ayla is becoming a trusted global IoT expert, and the Ayla Agile IoT
platform is enabling manufacturers to turn their products into smart
connected systems, transforming their businesses to compete in the
game-changing world of connectivity,” said Friedman. “We are grateful to
be part of this new era of connected products, and for the confidence
our new and existing investors place in Ayla and in our strategies for
continuing to help manufacturers embrace the IoT future.”

About Ayla Networks

Ayla Networks empowers leading manufacturers by simplifying the inherent
complexity of the Internet of Things (IoT), enabling them to turn their
products into smart connected systems and transform their businesses to
compete in the game-changing world of connectivity. Delivered as a cloud
platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Ayla’s Agile IoT platform provides the
flexibility and modularity to enable rapid changes to practically any
type of device, cloud or app environment. Ayla Networks was named a 2015
Cool Vendor in the Internet of Things by Gartner, Inc. For more
information, visit www.aylanetworks.com.